Transaction card marketers have come to recognize the appeal of affinity marketing in subscribing and retaining transaction account customers. In affinity marketing, the transaction card issuers offer a choice of images and symbols that a card holder can have displayed on the transaction card to show his or her affinity for a person, group, organization, institution, etc., associated with the images. Examples of these types of affinity transaction cards include cards that display images and symbols associated with sports teams, professional organizations, civic organizations, governmental organizations, businesses, colleges and universities, and geographical locations (e.g., cities, states, provinces, countries, etc.), among others.
While affinity transaction cards have a demonstrated popularity with transaction account customers, the degree of customization and personalization is still limited. Individual transaction card issuers generally offer a limited collection of images and symbols that can be displayed on the transaction card. In addition, from an account customer's perspective, a card design having images and symbols of interest is generally only available from a limited number of transaction card issuers (often just one). Thus, increasing the choices of images and symbols offered by a wider variety of transaction card issuers will enhance ability of the issuers to attract and retain customers through affinity marketing.
Transaction card issuers also appreciate that personalization of transaction cards can attract customers and instill customer loyalty. Credit card issuers, for example, often print the year that the cardholder first subscribed to the account on the face of the card. Unfortunately, card personalization has been generally limited to alpha-numeric text (e.g., cardholder name, membership year, etc.) and thumbnail pictures of the cardholder that are used for security purposes. Incorporating more decorative and stylized symbols and images on a transaction card to personalize the card for an individual, family, private organization, or private business is generally not offered by card issuers. Thus, there is also a need for enhancing the ability to personalize transaction cards for an individual or group. These and other issues are addressed by the present invention.